Male Wives and Female Husbands

The Tablighi Jamaʻat—a transnational Islamic missionary movement that propagates greater religious devotion and observance in The Gambia—opens the door to a new experience of gendered Muslim piety. Tabligh or Islamic missionary work results in novel roles for women, who are now actively involved in the public sphere—a domain usually defined as male. To provide their wives with more time to engage in tabligh , Tablighi men share the domestic workload, although this is generally considered ‘women’s work’ in Gambian society. Contrary to the conventional approach in scholarship on gender and Islam to study such inversion of gender roles in terms of Muslim women’s ‘empowerment’ and Muslim men’s ‘emancipation’, in the Gambian branch of the Jamaʻat the reconfiguration of gender norms seems to be motivated by Tablighis’ wish to return to the purported origins of Islam. Following the example of the Prophet’s wives, Tablighi women actively engage in tabligh and, taking Muhammad as their example, Tablighi men have taken over part of their wives’ household chores. Paradoxically, by reconfiguring gender norms Gambian Tablighis eventually reinstate the patriarchal gender order.